Father Joseph Fenton was one of the top American Catholic theologians of the last century.
His doctoral dissertation was directed by the great Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange and in the 1960's he was a collaborator of Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani in the fight against the Modernist heresy.
In 1953, in an article for the American Ecclesiological Review he wrote:
"The statement that our Catholic dogma or doctrine is the growth or the development of the seed planted by the Apostles would seem to be seriously objectionable. According to the Vatican Council [Vatican I] the Holy Father [pope] has been empowered to teach infallibly, not the growth or the development of the primitive Christian teaching, but the 'revelation delivered through the Apostles, or deposit of Faith' itself. What the Church teaches to the faithful in this year of 1953 is not a mere development of the teaching delivered to the Church of the Apostles. It is that very message, which has been proposed and guarded infallibly by the ecclesia docens [teaching Church] since the beginning, and will be thus proposed and guarded until the end of time."
"It is true, of course, that there has been an increase of knowledge of the deposit of the faith on the part of the Church."
(American Ecclesiological Review, "The Question of Ecclesiastical Faith, April, 1953)
This is only way that Cardinal John Henry Newman's concept of development of doctrine can be accepted as I am sure he understood.
His sixth test of "development" which must be understood as "increase of knowledge" said the "increase of knowledge" had to conserve what had gone before it from the time of the Apostles or, in other words, it cannot contradict the teachings of the Apostles.
Is is obvious that Francis's teachings of:
Communion for adulterers and the death penalty is "inadmissible" contradict not just Vatican I, but the teachings of the Apostles.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church.
His doctoral dissertation was directed by the great Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange and in the 1960's he was a collaborator of Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani in the fight against the Modernist heresy.
In 1953, in an article for the American Ecclesiological Review he wrote:
"The statement that our Catholic dogma or doctrine is the growth or the development of the seed planted by the Apostles would seem to be seriously objectionable. According to the Vatican Council [Vatican I] the Holy Father [pope] has been empowered to teach infallibly, not the growth or the development of the primitive Christian teaching, but the 'revelation delivered through the Apostles, or deposit of Faith' itself. What the Church teaches to the faithful in this year of 1953 is not a mere development of the teaching delivered to the Church of the Apostles. It is that very message, which has been proposed and guarded infallibly by the ecclesia docens [teaching Church] since the beginning, and will be thus proposed and guarded until the end of time."
"It is true, of course, that there has been an increase of knowledge of the deposit of the faith on the part of the Church."
(American Ecclesiological Review, "The Question of Ecclesiastical Faith, April, 1953)
This is only way that Cardinal John Henry Newman's concept of development of doctrine can be accepted as I am sure he understood.
His sixth test of "development" which must be understood as "increase of knowledge" said the "increase of knowledge" had to conserve what had gone before it from the time of the Apostles or, in other words, it cannot contradict the teachings of the Apostles.
Is is obvious that Francis's teachings of:
Communion for adulterers and the death penalty is "inadmissible" contradict not just Vatican I, but the teachings of the Apostles.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church.
Comments